Chapter Text
Peter sighed as he swung through the streets of Queens. Ever since the Homecoming fiasco, where he’d fought the Vulture before turning down Tony Stark’s offer of officially joining the Avengers, his life had more or less returned to normal.
He had, of course, continued patrolling. Each evening he’d swing around Queens, stopping petty thieves and saving cats from trees. But it felt like it wasn’t enough. Battling the Vulture, dangerous and terrifying as it had been, had made him feel like he was truly doing something to protect his home, that he was doing something to protect the world. And even though he’d told Mr. Stark that he was happy sticking to Queens, happy to just be the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, he couldn’t quite shake off the nagging feeling that he could be helping more people, saving move lives.
Peter landed on the edge of a rooftop and stared off into the dark trees of Forest Park. He very rarely strayed from the urbanized parts of New York, as a lack of buildings made web-swinging rather difficult. But the hairs on the back of his neck were prickling, his spider-sense sending alarm bells ringing in his ears, and he knew he couldn’t just ignore whatever danger was lurking in the trees. Making up his mind, Peter swung down from the rooftop and ventured into the depths of the park.
Forest Park wasn’t called Forest Park for no reason. Apart from the paths that wound through it like snakes, and the few clearings littered throughout it, it was a wild mess of trees and shrubs, easy to get lost in if one didn’t have some sort of GPS. Which, fortunately, was one of the features of Peter’s state-of-the-art suit.
“Peter,” Karen said as he crept through the trees. “You don’t normally stray from the streets. What has caught your attention?”
“Something’s happening,” Peter said, stopping below a tree to try to pinpoint where the sense of wrongness was coming from. “Something bad.”
Peter looked up in the trees, into the thick foliage of the leaves. The cover they offered was sure to help him remain hidden, he thought, scampering up the trunk of a nearby tree. It was times like these when he cursed the obnoxiously bright colors he’d chosen. He could’ve at least picked something more discreet, like the dark red of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
“Should I contact Mr. Stark?” Karen asked as he climbed. “He will be able to assist you.”
Peter reached the top of the tree. “No,” he whispered, the wind masking his voice from any listening ears. “I’m just going to check out whatever it is. I’ll decide what to do when I find it.”
“Very well.”
The canopy of the forest was thick, the branches and vines of the trees intertwined and wound together so tightly it made traversing the forest an easy feat. Peter followed his spider sense, playing a game of hot and cold but far less fun and with far higher stakes. He moved carefully through the trees, trying his hardest not to disturb the branches and possibly alert whatever evil was in the forest of his presence.
“My thermographic sensors aren’t detecting anything out of the ordinary, Peter,” Karen said after a few minutes had trickled by. “Are you sure something is out here?”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “My spidey-sense is going crazy.”
Several more moments ticked by before Peter heard a quiet hiss from the forest floor, not too far away from him. He stopped, peering down from his vantage point in the trees, trying to spot the noise’s source. “Can you sense anything?” he breathed out.
In response, the audio of his suit was magnified, allowing him to hear the hisses and snorts from the creature on the forest floor below him. Peter continued to scan the ground, trying to pinpoint the creature’s location.
The creature fell silent and, try as he might to spot something amiss, Peter couldn’t spot anything. After a moment of hesitation, in which nothing else moved, he cautiously climbed down from the canopy, hoping that he’d be able to find it more easily without anything blocking his view of his surroundings.
He took a few steps forward, cautiously looking between the trees. He was tense, on-guard, ready to leap up and return to the trees if something went wrong. The muted ringing of his spidey-sense rose to a shrill alarm, telling him to run, to return to the cover of the trees and hide. The scream turned into a shriek of a single word, one which Peter immediately obeyed.
JUMP.
Peter leapt into the air, narrowly missing a projectile shot at him from the undergrowth. He saw that, embedded in the tree in front of him, was a small dart with a clear green liquid resting inside. “Karen, send an alert to the Avengers! Tell them something’s in the forest!”
“Message sent. Stay safe, Peter.”
Peter shot a web to an overhanging branch and used it to pull himself back into the shelter of the trees. His eyes widened when he saw two silhouettes emerge from the trees. Peter shrank back into the twisting leaves, hoping that the meager cover they provided m would be enough to hide his regretfully bright suit. He clamped a hand over his mouth, trying to mask the sound of his ragged breathing. He watched as the approaching figures got closer and closer, until he could clearly see a green skinned man with a glider and a plump man, octopus-like machine attached to his back, who screamed the stereotypical ‘mad scientist’.
Green Goblin and Doc Ock his mind provided. Peter had, of course, heard of the Sinister Six, but he’d never actually encountered the group of villains. His watched, terrified, as they stopped and surveyed their surroundings.
“Was that him?” said the Green Goblin quietly. He probably assumed Peter wouldn’t be able to hear him, but his enhanced hearing meant that he could.
“I think so,” said Doc Ock. “And if it was, remember, we only want to dose him with the serum, not kill him. If we outright get his blood on our hands, all the heroes will come down on us. But once he gets the serum, they’ll deal with him themselves and we’ll be off the radar.”
“And we’re sure this’ll work?” Doubt was evident in the Goblin’s eyes.
“Yes,” Doc Ock sighed exasperatedly. “The Lizard told us it would. He’d know better than anyone.”
Are they talking about me? Peter wondered, panicked. Or do I need to warn someone else?
But he’d had heard enough. Peter took a deep breath before he scrambled backwards, intending to retreat to wait for backup. But something must have given him away. It could have been the quiet rustling as he moved, the small twigs he accidentally snapped, or even just their attention being drawn to Peter’s slight movement. Nevertheless, the Green Goblin’s head snapped up to his location, and his face contorted into a menacing grin.
Peter focused on the Goblin, waiting for him to make to first move. But he’d forgotten about Doc Ock, and didn’t realize that the mad scientist had gotten a second dart ready to fire until it was too late. Peter gave a small yelp when the dart stabbed through his right arm.
Yep, ok. They were talking about me.
He gritted his teeth and shook his head, chasing away the dark spots that appeared in the corners of his vision. He turned and scurried into the mess of leaves in the hopes that the twisting branches would shield him from any future shots. He felt sluggish and, try as he might to obey the warnings of his spidey-sense, he couldn’t quite get his limbs to do as he ordered.
He felt a second prick of pain as another dart hit him, and this time he couldn’t blink away the darkness that encroached upon his vision. Peter’s grip on the tree branch went slack and he couldn’t stop himself as he went tumbling to the forest floor below.
Peter heard a low chuckle, and he squinted blearily up at the figures that stood above him. He was fighting a losing battle with consciousness, and he feared what would become of him when he finally succumbed.
“Leave him here,” he heard one of them sneer. “The Avengers will find and deal with the new Spider-Man.”
Whatever they’d dosed him with had also addled his mind for, rather than panicking over what exactly was happening to him, last thought that slipped through Peter’s mind before his world went black was;
Diddly darn donuts, I never did get those eggs for Aunt May.